The Judas Virus

by Don Donaldson

  “If you need absolution, see a priest.”

  “And I didn’t come for absolution. I want to talk to you about facts in this epidemic that don’t fit into a coherent pattern. As I understand it, that’s your specialty.”

  “Was, past tense.” He plunged another bulb into the soil.

  “I know you’re retired. I was hoping you’d just talk to me about these facts and give me your opinion.”

  “Not interested.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t owe you an explanation. I don’t even know you. Isn’t it time for you to go?”

  Irritated at his rudeness, Chris said, “Fine. Thanks for being such a public-spirited citizen. I don’t see how your wife puts up with you. Enjoy your garden. And by the way, all those bulbs you’ve planted while we’ve been talking—they’re upside down.”

  Appearing shocked, Fairborn glanced at the bulb in his hand and looked back at Chris. “What do you mean?”

  She took the bulb from him and pointed at the end he was about to push into the soil. “That isn’t the root. This is.”

  His eyes grew even more hooded. “How do you know?”

  “When I was in high school, I worked part-time for a landscape company. I’ve planted thousands of those things.”

  He stood there sizing her up for several seconds, then said, “Let’s go inside, and you can tell me your story.”

  Standing aside so he could lead the way, she was surprised to see that he walked with a considerable limp. She followed him into his study, where he motioned her to an oxblood-colored leather sofa while he lowered himself into a similar armchair whose cushion whooshed under his bulk.

  “Now,” he said, folding his hands over his belly. “What doesn’t make sense?”

  For the next fifteen minutes, he listened intently to what she had to say, barely blinking, hardly moving. She told him how the virus at first seemed to be therapeutic, but then became a Judas, turning lethal and killing its victims by causing coronary artery spasms that led to cardiac arrhythmia. She related how it moved through the hospital by mysterious routes, striking two patients in different wards but, so far, harming no one else. She talked about how her father was still alive, even though the virus had surely mutated into its lethal form inside him. She finished by telling him how the virus had caused her father’s lunulas and those of Mary Beth Cummings and the Barrosos to turn gray, but had not affected those of the two patients who’d died.

  “So what do you make of all this?”

  Fairborn reached for the tobacco pouch on the table next to his chair, unzipped it, and nestled it in his lap. He picked up the pipe from the ashtray on the same table and dipped it into the pouch. “Well, there are two possibilities,” he said, bringing his pipe out of the pouch. “Most of these observations that are troubling you could just be individual differences in the way people respond to an infectious organism. Or . . . and I think this is the more likely explanation . . .”

  Chris waited eagerly for him to finish his thought.

  Instead, he concentrated on his pipe, tamping the tobacco into the bowl, then putting the tobacco pouch back on the table. He picked up a lighter and struck a flame that he applied to the bowl, puffing on the pipe until his little campfire was well stoked.

  “Or?” Chris prompted.

  He took a long puff on the pipe, blew a plume of smoke at the ceiling, then looked back at her. “Or, there are two viruses.”

  Chapter 22

  “TWO VIRUSES,” CHRIS echoed. “Why do you say that?”

  “If the virus that causes the lethal effects is different from the one producing the therapeutic events, that would explain why the two patients who died didn’t have gray lunulas.”

  “Because they weren’t infected with the transplant virus, only the lethal one.”

  “It also explains why you can’t figure out how the transplant virus got into them. It didn’t.”

  “And my father . . . He’s still alive because he was infected only with the transplant virus?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “That just leaves us with a different question. How did the lethal virus get into the five who died?”

  “A different question, true, but now it’s the right question. The transplant virus appeared to be moving around in puzzling ways only because it didn’t fit with everything you knew about it. We know nothing about the second virus, so its movements may be perfectly reasonable.”

  “But where did it come from? Why did it appear first in the two nurses who were taking care of my father? If you look at the history of everything that’s happened, the flow of infection seems so obviously from my father to the nurses, to the one nurse’s husband.”

  “I can’t explain that, but I seem to remember reading a long time ago about a disease that produces symptoms very similar to those in the people who died. I first thought about it when I saw the symptomatology in the paper last night. But I can’t recall where I read it.”

  “Maybe I should hit the medical literature and see what I can dig up.”

  “Good idea. Meanwhile, I’ll try to remember where I saw it. Sometimes, if I just sit quietly and think about a problem for a while, the answer will come to me in a day or two. The wait used to be only a few hours, but I’m not the man I was.”

  “Well, the man you are is certainly man enough.”

  It was just the barest hint, but Chris thought she saw a little upward tug at the corners of Fairborn’s mouth. “I’ve taken too much of your time,” Chris said, getting up.

  Fairborn, too, rose.

  Chris got a card and a pen from her bag and jotted her home phone and pager number on it. She crossed the space between them and handed it to Fairborn. “Call me anytime.”

  “You should have my number, too.”

  He recited his phone number, and Chris wrote it on another of her own cards.

  On the way to the door, Ann joined them. “Did you have a productive talk?”

  “I think so,” Chris replied.

  “I’m happy you came. Sam spends too much time just working in the garden. He needs more intellectual stimulation.”

  “Don’t let her fool you,” Sam said. “It’s all I can do to keep up with her.”

  When Chris was gone, Sam told his wife what he and Chris had discussed, then he went back to the study to smoke his pipe and let his brain know how much he wanted to remember where he’d read about those symptoms.

  After finishing his smoke, he returned to the potting table and resumed work on the caladiums, starting by digging up all those he’d planted upside down and replanting them correctly.

  A little before noon, while Ann was preparing lunch, she saw Sam through the kitchen window, coming toward the house as fast as his bad leg allowed. Worried about him, she wiped her hands on her apron and met him as he came through the door to his study. “Are you all right? Did you cut yourself again?”

  “I think I know where I read about those symptoms.” He went to the phone and entered a number from memory.

  From the doorway, Ann watched him with affection, happy to see him so excited. She returned to the kitchen, humming, forgetting in her insulated little world that this was not a problem affecting some primitive tribe in a God-forsaken part of the world, but was in Atlanta, barely thirty minutes from her door.

  In the study, Sam’s call to the CDC had been answered.

  “Marcy . . . Sam Fairborn.”

  Marcy Sandoval had been Sam’s secretary when he was a virology section chief at the CDC. She was still there, serving his successor. They exchanged the usual banter appropriate to the situation, then Sam said, “I’m trying to track down something I read years ago, and I think it was in an epi one report.”

  He was referring to the field report written by epidemiology teams the CDC
sends to places experiencing an outbreak of a new disease. This report was usually followed by the epi two, a full account of the disease, written after blood and tissue samples were completely analyzed and the causal organism identified. The epi two was often published, or at the very least presented at the CDC’s annual conference. While Sam’s memory of the investigation in question was very dim, he seemed to remember that there had never been a full account published or presented at conference. Which meant that the only record of this investigation, if indeed he was on the right track, was in the CDC’s files.

  “Are those old epi one reports computerized?” he asked.

  “How far back do you need them?”

  “Let’s say fifteen years.”

  “They’ve been trying to get all that old material on CDs, but I don’t know if they’ve made it back that far yet.”

  “Could you make copies for me of what there is?”

  “How soon do you need them?”

  “You mean you haven’t started yet?”

  Marcy laughed. “I see you haven’t changed. When I get them, should I mail them to you, or do you want to pick them up?”

  “I’ll come and get them. Do visitors still have to be ferried by security van up to the lobby?”

  “Yes.”

  “Leave them at Security for me then. And thanks. I’ll speak to your new boss and tell him you need a raise.”

  After hanging up, Sam considered calling Chris and telling her what he’d remembered, but since there was a chance he was wrong, he decided to keep it to himself until he’d gone through the old reports.

  AFTER HER VISIT with Fairborn, Chris spent the rest of the day on her office computer trying to find a previously described disease that caused hair loss, bilateral blindness, central pain, and vascular inflammation. Finally, unable to read another word, she gave up, having found nothing. When she’d first heard Fairborn propose that there were two viruses, it had sounded plausible, even likely. But now, walking to her car, she had serious doubts about his theory.

  TR PICKED UP the ringing phone and identified himself.

  “It’s all set,” a familiar voice from New Jersey said. “I just hope there’s plenty of sand over your tracks.”

  “You worry too much,” TR replied.

  “I don’t think you worry enough.”

  “What phone are you using?”

  “A safe one, but your question makes me feel better. Just be careful.”

  SAM FAIRBORN TURNED right and proceeded slowly down Michael Street, looking through the black chain-link fence at the complex of buildings that comprised the CDC, where he’d spent thirty-five years of his life. It was the first time since he’d retired that he’d come back, and he was surprised at how detached he felt looking at it. It was as if it had all happened to someone else. He’d once been the best epidemiologist in the world, and now he was just an old man who used to be somebody. And the funny thing was, that was okay. But he had to admit this was fun—the puzzles, tracking down a vague memory of something that could have enormous significance.

  One more time, he thought. Just to prove he still could.

  It was now Monday afternoon. Considering that he’d asked Marcy for those old epi ones on Friday, and she’d already rounded them up, it was obvious she was just as reliable and effective as ever.

  The road ran along the eastern end of the Emory campus, and Sam was amazed at the amount of construction going on there. But then, Emory always did have a lot of money. At the end of the street, he turned right and pulled into a slot in front of the so-called visitor’s center, which was actually a security operation designed to keep someone from getting into the complex with a bomb.

  He went inside and stepped up to the visitor sign-in counter.

  “Yes, sir, what can I do for you?” a burly black man in a uniform and carrying a big sidearm asked.

  “I’m Sam Fairborn. I think you have a package for me.”

  “I believe I do.” He went to a desk behind him and picked up a manila envelope. He checked the name on the front and brought it back to the counter.

  “Now, sir, if you’ll just show me some identification.”

  Amused that he had so quickly gone from being the most universally recognized figure at the CDC to someone who needed to prove who he was, Sam gave the guard his driver’s license. After the guard perused it and checked the real Sam against the photo on the license, he handed over the envelope. Going back to his car, Sam felt apprehensive and excited in a way that gardening never produced.

  SAM FOUND TWO CDs in the envelope he’d picked up. The inclusive dates of the reports they contained were written in Magic Marker on each one. He loaded the disk with the oldest reports into his computer and waited for the icon to appear on his monitor. When it did, he clicked it open and read the title of the first report: Outbreak of Dengue Fever in Sao Paulo. Well acquainted with the symptoms of Dengue fever, he nevertheless skimmed the report to see if it contained any surprises. Finding none, he moved on to Human Herpes Virus Infection in Malaysian Blood Donors.

  And so it went for the next hour.

  Growing stiff from sitting so long, he got up, filled his pipe, and went outside, where he watched two young squirrels chasing each other through the trees on the other side of the garden wall. He didn’t like squirrels because they were rodents, and rodents were the vectors for so many diseases . . . rodents and mosquitoes. So he didn’t belong to the army of ecologists who believed that every species was valuable. If it had been in his power, he’d have destroyed every rodent and mosquito on the planet. Still, those damn squirrels were cute. He continued to watch them until they dropped out of sight, then he resumed his stroll around the garden, always vigilant for fungus or marauding insects.

  He finished his stroll and his pipe at the same time and returned to his study. There, he settled once more into the chair in front of his computer and replaced the CD he’d been working on with the next one.

  He clicked the disk open and read the title of the first report on it: Outbreak of a New, Lethal Disease in Northern Kazakhstan.

  Kazakhstan . . .

  The location created a flutter of recognition in his memory circuits. As he read further, the salient facts came at him in a rush: rodent-borne, universally fatal, onset signaled by hair loss, followed by bilateral blindness . . .

  This was it.

  Chapter 23

  THE DISCOVERER OF the Star of India sapphire couldn’t have been more excited than Sam. He ripped through the rest of the report, neglected parts of his brain stirring again, lighting up, buzzing.

  Preliminary studies done on blood samples of both the rodents and the human victims showed that they cross-reacted with antibodies against a genus of organisms known as hantaviruses.

  This struck Sam as quite surprising, for no known hantavirus acted as this one did. But of course, prior to the outbreak in the Four Corners regions of the US, everyone thought hantaviruses only caused kidney problems. But the Four Corners strain killed by causing acute respiratory distress. So why couldn’t this be a new hanta strain? And why had there never been a full report published? It was long enough ago that it should have been written up while he was still active.

  He looked at the author’s name. Bill Lansden. Yeah, he remembered Lansden: a tall lanky guy with a permanent chapped look to his face. Worked in the Special Pathogens section.

  Sam pulled the phone toward him and entered the general number for the CDC. When they answered, he asked for Lansden. The phone in Lansden’s office rang four times, then Sam heard it roll over to a different number.

  “Special Pathogens,” a female voice said.

  “I’m trying to find Bill Lansden.”

  “I’m sorry, but Dr. Lansden is on medical leave.”

  Stretching a point, Sam said, “We’re old fr
iends. What happened?”

  “He’s had a stroke.”

  “Is he at home?”

  “I believe he’s still in the hospital.”

  “Where?”

  “Emory University”

  Sam did an Internet search for the hospital and punched its general contact number into his phone.

  A few minutes later, having verified that Lansden was indeed still hospitalized and having gained possession of his room number, Sam got Chris’s card out of his desk drawer and called her pager.

  CHRIS HAD AWAKENED that morning ready for another go at the medical literature databases. But as on Friday, and during the few hours she’d spent searching on Saturday, she had still found nothing useful. As she scrolled down another list of titles, she felt her pager vibrate. She retrieved it from her pocket and looked at the displayed number. Failing to recognize it, but grateful for an excuse to take a break, she got her cell phone from her handbag and punched in the number.

  Whoever had placed the call picked up before the first ring was finished.

  “This is Chris Collins.”

  “It’s Sam Fairborn. I found the report. It was an old epi one in the CDC files.”

  “All the symptoms were the same?”

  “Identical.”

  “What caused them, or didn’t the investigator know?”

  “Couldn’t say for sure, but the blood of the victims and the rodent vector cross-reacted to antibodies against the hanta genus.”

  That jogged Chris’s memory. “My father’s medical records showed that about ten years ago he had some kind of respiratory disease, but he got better. And he was living in New Mexico at the time . . .”

  “If that was Four Corners hanta he had, he’s probably loaded with hanta antibodies, which would explain why he’s still alive,” Fairborn said.

  “Surely you’re right. It all fits so well. But I’m going to have his blood tested to be sure. Where was the outbreak the epi one was describing?”

  “Kazakhstan.”

  Chris’s first reaction to this was to wonder how a lethal Kazak virus, that had apparently never come to the medical world’s attention in any other place, got to Atlanta. Then she saw the obvious answer. “But the investigators of that outbreak likely brought blood samples back here to the CDC for further study . . .”